


all these promises won't turn golden

by slybrunette



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-03
Updated: 2010-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-12 15:29:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slybrunette/pseuds/slybrunette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Semi-AU. There is no time to stop and reflect and breathe in this city, where everything is accelerated and four years really only means eighteen months.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all these promises won't turn golden

There is no time to stop and reflect and _breathe_ in this city, where everything is accelerated and four years really only means eighteen months.

You either move quickly or you start looking for another job.

 

-

 

 

They knew each other first.

It's why Andi's smile was always so tight for those first five seconds, the initial recognition period before the mask of a politician slipped into place.

(They could've been friends, her and Andi, if only they didn't both hold the power to render this normally verbose man speechless when put together.

They could've been enemies, too, but CJ was never going to be the homewrecker and Andi was never going to be okay with who he turned out to be, colder and sadder as the years melted away with the snow.)

 

 

-

 

It's Nebraska or Missouri, some state that will never turn blue no matter how many campaign stops they make. His unfinished speech keeps him from drinking, but there's bourbon in the hotel room and Josh wouldn't stop talking polling numbers up until fifteen minutes ago, so it's a concentrated effort not to touch it.

"It's two in the morning."

Toby pauses at the exact moment she stops speaking. "And your point?"

"It's two in the morning and we have to be on the road in less than five and a half hours."

Down the hall she can hear a door click closed, bare feet on carpet, and she knows they aren't the only ones up, and likely won't be any time soon. This is the first campaign; people aren't quite so jaded yet.

Forehead on open palm, he keeps typing, hits backspace more than usual, interrupted flow and maybe seconds or maybe minutes pass before he says, "CJ, can I help you with something?"

"I figured you could use the company," she replies, settles into the chair in a graceful but firm way that leaves no room for argument.

It's the very last thing he could use right then.

 

 

-

 

 

This is the first time they sleep together.

Clumsy hands and lumpy mattress underneath them. The ice machine at the end of the hall makes all sorts of racket and she laughs on an inhale; it all comes out rather strangled and undignified.

She doesn't think about it in the morning, subpar coffee and his face behind a newspaper on the bus. She doesn't think about it in the afternoon when she listens to the cadence of the governor's voice mix with Toby's words, when she offers him a smile over Sam's head.

She doesn't think about it the next night when she shows up in his room again, a sheaf of papers in her hands that end up abandoned on the desk.

 

 

-

 

 

It's campaign sex; it always had an expiration date, as most things do.

(And afterwards, maybe she loved him and maybe she didn't. Maybe she loved that he was always still there, year after year. Maybe she liked the challenge he presented.

Maybe she resented him a little for all of it too.)

 

 

-

 

 

Two years pass, then four. A re-election campaign, a second win, another few hundred crises. He doesn't have Andi, but there's Huck and Molly now. She has mixed signals and encounters with Danny Concannon that she can't quite rationalize.

One day it's a Monday in early April and the news is talking about cherry blossoms and a congressman from Illinois' sex scandal; the next it's a Friday in November and there's a turkey to be chosen and the situation room is looking busier than usual.

It's four more years in office, and then it's three, and then it's _not like he can run for a third term_ and _what are you going to do now?_.

She can't help but feel like that first campaign, that long stretch of road as seen through bus windows, was only months – and not years – ago.

She keeps wondering where the time went while living through days that never seem to end.

 

 

-

 

People start leaving.

It drives the point home.

(This will be the last turn of the hourglass.)

 

-

 

 

"How did I let this pass me by?"

"The new policy initiatives?"

"No, I mean – " only she doesn't know what she means exactly.

Toby does. He folds his hands on his desk, answers quietly. "Because we all did."

 

 

-

 

 

Two nights later, he shows up at her apartment.

His mouth on hers isn't a surprise, and neither is the way she walks them backwards, nudges the door shut with one long, slender leg.

 

 

-

 

 

There are certain things she isn't willing to let pass her by.

Not a second time.

 

 

-

 

 

 _fin._


End file.
